Weekend Forecast: ‘All Saints,’ ‘Birth of the Dragon,’ & ‘Leap!’

The final weekend of August marks the pre-Labor Day spot on the calendar and, in an already slow box office market, things look to remain very quiet despite three new films opening in moderate-to-wide release on Friday.

PROS:

Sony is mirroring the late August release of 2015’s War Room with this weekend’s faith-based drama, All Saints, debuting in an estimated 700 theaters. A grassroots ad campaign is expected to bring out church groups through the holiday next weekend and beyond as the studio plays the long game. The film’s Facebook activity has outpaced that of films like The Case for Christ and The Resurrection of Gavin Stone.

BH Tilt’s Birth of the Dragon will hope to court Bruce Lee fans with the studio’s latest targeted release strategy. Social media buzz on Facebook has topped that of Hands of Stone, which similarly debuted in late August last year.

TWC’s Leap! gets its North American release this weekend, with its biggest advantage seeming to be the lack of kid-friendly options in the market since July’s Emoji Movie and the soft performance of this month’s Nut Job 2.

Meanwhile, summer’s biggest film — Wonder Woman — is reportedly adding 1,000 theaters this weekend (including some IMAX locations) as it looks to mirror the late summer expansion employed by Jurassic World ahead of Labor Day weekend in 2015. Sleeper hit Baby Driver is also adding an estimated 800 locations this weekend, although it may still land outside the top ten.

Other films already in limited release — Wind River, Ingrid Goes West, and Good Times are also reportedly expanding this weekend, however, the latter two are excluded from the forecast below. Wind River‘s forecast below is based on an expected location count around 2,000.

CONS:

All Saints‘ social media growth has generally left something to be desired, even in comparison to Case for Christ on Twitter and especially War Room on all major platforms.

Birth of the Dragon‘s Twitter trends are far behind those of Hands of Stone, although that is partly attributable to the distributor’s more modest marketing outreach.

Leap! hasn’t received a major marketing push in the United States, so it’s possible that much of its online presence is driven by the film’s healthy box office run in overseas markets earlier this year.

Would it make more sense if I said that Warner Brothers is trying to launch an Oscar campaign for Wonder Woman? They will re-release it to assure that it gets the attention it deserves.
I will repeat that All Saints may do better than that $3.6 million and I see it heading towards an $8 million three-day opening. I think also that The Hitman’s Bodyguard may earn $9.5 million this weekend rather than a $10.3 million weekend.
Leap does not have a good RT rating and may fizzle like Rock Dog back in February, maybe earning lower than a $5 million weekend opening. Plus, Leap has been delayed repeatedly.
Meanwhile, the success of Logan Lucky and its ambitious advertising all depend on it holding well with a drop of 40% or lower. Here’s hoping it will successfully do that, even with the odds stacked against it.

Why? It would have needed the crutch of WB adding over 1400+ screens to accomplish that – not sure how that’s something to be proud of.

DC drones are too funny. Comparing a 6th film in a franchise/2nd reboot starring a THIRD actor playing the role to fresh, new IP that has never been on film released at the perfect zeitgeist moment. OF COURSE WW was going to earn more than Spidey domestically.

But that’s not enough – they need to add screens so it can beat Spidey 2 months later. SMH.

No, what will be hilarious is when Spider-man blows past Wonder Woman at the global box office in 4 weeks. Even if Spidey only does 2/3’s of what Wonder Woman did in China, that will be enough to take the crown.

All Saints is weak compared to Case for Christ on Social Media? Really? I think the author is confused considering All Saints releases this weekend and already has twice as many facebook fans. Not that facebook fans mean anything anyway